Well-Aged Music

My taste is eclectic; here you will find everything from folk, blues, and jug-band music to experimental bluegrass and avant-garde classical music. My bias is certainly towards acoustic music with little production and much enthusiasm, but my sole selection criteria is Quality.

Disclaimer

The music on this site is mostly old, hard-to-find, or under-noticed music. Many of the musicians are dead. As for the living musicians, I put their music here because I want to spread and publicize it, not because I want to rip them off. Musicians, like artists, are a hard-working and under-compensated lot, and I highly recommend that if you like the music you find here, you seek out their other recordings. Of course, if any musician finds their music here and wants it removed, contact me and I'll happily oblige.

Taxonomy

Roots - Where our music came from; our shared heritage. It may not sound contemporary, but if you listen you can hear its echoes in everything that has come since.

Branches - A bridge between cultures, styles, musical languages. As a meeting of two or more rivers, the sources mingle and new life is born.

Fruits - Music ripened to perfection. It has absorbed the roots, grown in the sun of contemporary life, and made a new statement. Sweet and nourishing.

Seeds - The start of something new. These musicians went out on a limb, and did something never done before. Whether they had followers or not, their music retains the stamp of individuality and experimentation.

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March 24, 2012

I just realized that though I don't have the bandwidth to upload anything currently, or the time to write reviews, every once in a while I come across something that would be easy to share with you all. This is one such instance.

Enjoy this and grab it quick! It's free only this weekend. And the music is very very fine as well. Jake Schepps is a really skilled and exploratory banjo player, and the album also features the absolutely incredible young guitarist Grant Gordy (perhaps my favorite living guitarist, and a really nice guy too), and a crop of talented Colorado-based acoustic musicians. I saw them play these tunes live last summer, in an old schoolhouse in the mountains… maybe 30 people in the audience. Just incredible music.

John Fahey attempted to fuse the ideas of Béla Bartók with the "primitive" music of the United States. Jake Schepps' project is another take on the same. Except instead of using American melodies and Bartókian harmonies, he uses Bartók's melodies and an American string band arrangement. And I think you'll find, that like most classical music that was inspired by folk music, it sounds better on folk instruments than on grand pianos.

Enjoy!

Hello Friends,

A short reminder that right now you can download the criticallyacclaimed album "An Evening in the Village: the Music of Bela Bartok" for FREE. Please spread the word and let any and all know that for the next two days (March 24, & 25) you can download the entire album with bonus tracks for the big fat price of $0.00. Bandcamp does offer the option to pay something if you are so inclined, and you can buy a physical copy for only $10. And as always, if you buy two Bartok CD's you get a freeTen Thousand Leaves.Facebook info here. Tweet this to your followers by clicking here, and then head straight to Bandcamp to get your copy.